


swimming

by dragonwell_nova_system



Category: Homestuck
Genre: I went to the beach with a friend, M/M, and I slapped them in the face and cursed at them, and decided I was gonna write a fic about it, cursing, idk I love erikar, so that's how this was concieved, they're poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwell_nova_system/pseuds/dragonwell_nova_system
Summary: Eridan and Karkat go to the beach on Earth C. they're a couple of idiots. it's cute.
Relationships: Eridan Ampora/Karkat Vantas, background davekat - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	swimming

It had been a good few years - almost ten, actually - that they’d all been living on Earth C. Things were going...really well. Better than Eridan had expected. Things were...calm, compared to Alternia at least. He was finally able to relax, to think about himself, to not act...the way he did before. There wasn’t expectation. At least, not as much as before. It was lessened enough that...Eridan felt like he could genuinely be himself. And he’d done his best in the past few years to adjust, and make amends with others. And it had...somewhat worked.

He still, generally, didn’t talk to Vriska or Feferi. Which made sense. He didn’t feel...comfortable around them. At all. But he talked regularly with the humans, and Karkat. Other trolls he spoke to less often, but still decently often. Things had changed. And were  _ still _ changing.

This was probably a sign of just how much things had changed.

  
There were  _ gill covers _ now. For seadwellers with malformed gills. Like him. That had to mean there were others that had the same issue, and weren’t culled for it. Well...of course they wouldn’t be culled for it. Things had changed, culling wasn’t much of a thing anymore. If someone was killed, their murderer got in trouble for it.

But that was off topic. Really, things had led to this situation. That Eridan could swim, without worrying about his gills.  _ Anyone _ could swim, beaches were generally safe places, even with seadwellers around.

And that meant that, of course, Karkat would want to see what it was like. And he’d dragged Eridan along.

A learning experience, sure. Eridan had bought a gill cover on impulse a while ago. He hadn’t used them yet though. But...well, now was a chance to.

Both he and Karkat were nervous. They spent a bit of time away from the beach itself, sitting on a blanket they’d brought and just chatting.

But now, they were heading towards the water. There was no more stalling. 

Eridan had put the gill cover on - it was surprisingly comfortable, not very flexible, but that was fine. They were meant to keep water away after all.

But right now...right now, he was about to go swimming. With Karkat, the person who he was flushed for. Their situation was...difficult to explain. They both knew they liked each other. But they didn’t act any different from friends really.

That was fine though. Eridan was comfortable.

Well, not really. He was nervous as hell, but about the water, not his relationship status with Karkat. 

It didn’t take them long to be in the water. Not very far, just far enough that their feet were submerged. They both just sat down for now.

Both of them had some type of floaty - different, but they had it. Karkat had one of the ring ones, while Eridan had a hammock type thing. It was weird, a net type thing with two floaties on opposing ends. He didn’t know how well it’d keep him out of the water, but he felt alright with it.

He and Karkat slowly made their way into deeper water, but still where they could touch. If they stood up, the water would only be about waist high. So far, this was okay.

Karkat laid in his floatie, basically entirely out of the water except for his feet. While Eridan was also laying back, but he had more of his body in the water, based on the fact that the hammock didn’t stay out of the water as well as Karkat’s floatie. But it was...alright. Comfortable.

“So...how’s your week been?” Karkat gently ran his hand through the water, watching it ripple and make small waves around it. Eridan shrugged some. 

“Sloww. Not a lot has been goin’ on recently.”

  
“Yeah, I know how that is.” Karkat glanced over at Eridan and smirked, using his arms to get himself closer to the violet blood. Eridan paused and stared at him, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what he was doing-

And got splashed. Right in the face.

Eridan sputtered and closed his eyes, putting his hand in front of his face. He scrambled a bit and moved to be basically straddling the hammock, setting his feet on the sand and rubbing at his face to try and get the water away. “Wwhat the fuck- Kar I’m wwearin’ my  _ glasses _ -” He stopped as he heard his...friend’s, laughter. 

Fuck. Gog fucking dammit he was cute as all hell and he had no right to be that fucking cute. 

He pulled his glasses off and shook them a bit, to see what that would do. It...seemed to help a little, so he put them back on and blinked a few times. Only to see Karkat, snickering into his palms.

Fuck. 

He was so fucking flushed for this bastard.

Eridan just sat there, staring at Karkat, until he realized he was staring. His face gained a tinge of violet, and he looked away, instead staring off into deeper water.

Okay...so far swimming wasn’t all that bad. Being splashed even wasn’t too bad. Wasn’t  _ nice _ , especially since now he couldn’t fucking see through his glasses as well. But...well, that reaction from Karkat was worth it.

“Sorry. I won’t do that shit again.” Karkat had apparently calmed down while Eridan had been thinking. He glanced over and Karkat and huffed.

“You better not.” Eridan grumbled a bit and shifted some. “...should wwe go out further?”

“Hell yeah.” And they did, they swam out a bit further. Chest level if they were standing, still not too deep, but...deeper than either of them had comfortable swam out.

Eridan reached up towards his gills to check the cover. It...seemed fine. Was perfectly in place…

“Here. Hold these.” He handed off his glasses to Karkat, who took them, confused as all hell.

He ducked under the water after letting go of the floatie hammock, hearing a gasp before he did so, and swam over to Karkat. He, generally, knew  _ how _ to swim- it was rather instinctual. So this was fine. The fact that he could  _ actually hold his breath  _ was...interesting. But he felt fine.

He came up out of the water right next to Karkat, gasping softly for air and pushing his hair out of his face- only to pause as his face was touched. He opened his eyes, to look at Karkat only to close his eyes again as Karkat put his glasses on him, and his face was...gently slapped?

“Idiot bitch. Don’t fucking do that. Stupid bastard bitch boy. Scared the shit out of me you little bitch.” 

...his face was really close to Eridan’s. He could feel his heart beating, could  _ feel _ what Karkat was saying before he heard it. Well, his breath, at least. 

Eridan gently pushed himself away from Karkat and grabbed the hammock. “Yeah yeah- I’m fine. I kneww wwhat I wwas doin’.”

“Well I didn’t fucking know that-” Eridan adjusted to sit in the hammock again, rolling his eyes.

“Havve a little more trust in me, Kar. I’m not  _ that _ stupid.” He tapped the gill cover, rolling his eyes. “I havve these for a reason.” Karkat huffed and gently kicked his feet in the water - away from Eridan, thankfully. “...I’m sorry I wworried you, I’ll be more transparent about wwhat I’m doin’ next time.”

“You’re a ballsy fucking bastard.” Eridan rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Yeah yeah, I knoww.” He got comfortable in the hammock again, staring up at the sky. His glasses had dried off by now. They were kinda smudged, but it was better than not being able to see. He’d clean them off later, after they got out of the water. For now...he just relaxed. This was nice.

“Tell me how to do that.” He blinked and looked over at Karkat. 

“...just howw to swwim?” Karkat nodded, and Eridan sighed softly, thinking. “...It’s a lot about the movvement ‘a your arms an’ legs...I think it’d be easiest to showw you. Here.” He handed off his glasses to the other troll again and slid out of the hammock. 

It took a bit of time to effectively show Karkat how to swim, and for him to actually pull it off. By that time, the beach was clearing out...and so they decided to go sit on their blanket and dry off.

“...That was nice.” Karkat was drying off his hair as he said this. Eridan hummed softly and nodded, brushing a hand through his hair. He’d definitely need to shower later.

“Yeah. It wwas.” He agreed, glancing at Karkat as he took off his gill cover. “...wwanna havve dinner together?”

They both went quiet after Eridan said that, faces gaining a nice little flush each. They both knew the intent behind that. “...I have the time.” Considering he’d made sure he had a clear day to do this with Eridan, Karkat  _ definitely _ had time. 

They gathered up their things, making sure they had everything they brought with. Eridan pulled out his extra towels and put them on the seats in his car, getting in. “Should wwe just order a pizza or something?”

“Pizza sounds like a good fucking idea to me.”

“Pizza it is.”

Eridan drove them back to his hive and got them inside. He told Karkat where the bathroom was, after asking him what he liked on his pizza. Then he ordered the pizza, unable to keep himself from touching his hair the whole time.

Once Karkat was changed and out of the bathroom, Eridan put some money on the table and headed to the bathroom himself, to take a shower. He grabbed clean clothes from his bedroom and got in the shower.

And took the time to think.

Karkat was here. They both knew that they liked each other. They just...hadn’t done anything with it. Yet. They hadn’t  _ talked _ much about what they  _ wanted _ . So...they would just have to talk.

But did Eridan  _ want _ to talk about that right now?

His anxiety was telling him no. But...he knew he should.

Yeah, he was going to.

Eridan finished up his shower and got out, drying off his hair again, as best he could. He left it up in his towel, after he got dressed in one of his pullover sweaters and sweatpants. He then stepped out of the bathroom, grabbing their dirty and wet swimwear to go put it in the wash.

Karkat, in the meantime, had to pay for the pizza and got first dibs on it thanks to that. So, he was already eating.

Eridan grabbed a plate for himself and napkins for the both of them - because Karkat was a fucking heathen and was just eating the pizza with his two bare hands, no plate - then went to sit next to Karkat to eat.

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while, before Karkat broke it. “You’re fucking nervous and it’s making me nervous. What the fuck is wrong?”

Eridan paused, mid bite of pizza, and put it down on the table. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed and wiped his hands off using a napkin. “...I’vve been thinkin’-”

“A dangerous game.”

Eridan snorted and rolled his eyes. “-about us.”

“...Oh.” Karkat went quiet.

“Yeah. An’...I decided wwe need to talk about it.”

“...Yeah, we fucking do need to talk about it.”

“I’m flushed for you-”

“And I’m fucking flushed for you too. We know this.”

Eridan wished he had his scarf right about now. He instead pulled his sweater sleeves down over his hands and fidgeted with them. “...so wwhat do wwe wwant to do about it?”

“Well.” Karkat sighed and leaned back, crossing one leg over his other. “...I talked to Dave about this shit.” Eridan winced some. He’d forgotten that he and Dave were in the flushed quadrant together. “Chill out. Dave introduced me to a concept called polyamory. Think of having multiple people in the same quadrant, but making sure everyone knows who you’re with.” Oh. Okay that...cleared things up.

“I think Roxy was talkin’ about that once. Said they thought they wwere poly.” Karkat nodded and looked at Eridan.

“Dave said he was alright with it if I wanted to be poly in my flush quad with you.”

Eridan’s face turned a bit violet as he thought for a moment. “...an’...do you wwant that?” 

Karkat nodded and leaned his head back to look at the ceiling. “...Yeah. I’d like to be your matesprit as well as still being with Dave.”

Eridan nodded some and grabbed his pizza again, after pulling his sleeves back. “...Yeah. That sounds good. So...wwe’re official?”

  
“Yeah.” Karkat nodded and glanced at Eridan, and they both went back to eating their pizza.

Afterwards they brushed their teeth - Karkat using the toothbrush they’d been leaving over there for him because the times he’d been staying the night had been enough that he could keep some stuff there. They then decided to chill out and watch some movies together, though Eridan did say he’d prefer not to watch romcoms.

So they watched some animated movies instead.

And that was how they ended their night, falling asleep on the couch with Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” playing in the background.

Eridan’s back would be killing him in the morning, and he and Karkat would have a new understanding of their own relationship. But...it wouldn’t be all that different from normal. And for now...they were cuddled up together, fast asleep. It was just a pretty normal night now.

And they wouldn’t have to work too hard to make a new normal.


End file.
